Phil talks a lot of sense when sober

I was talking with a friend last night and he's a no-nonsense sort of man, the Chief Operating Officer of a global consultancy.  He's had to learn the skills of business development and selling on top of his 'day job' and he's done a pretty good job of it too.  Here's what Phil said-

"For consultants selling, sometimes abstract products and services, undertsanding the value of what you do is the the first step, communicationg that value clearly is the second step, and delivering the value, time and again is the third step to world-class selling in our field."

Value = relevance from the client's point of view.  If he's hanging from the edge of a cliff throw him a rope, if he's looking to have a bonfire party pass him some sausages and a box of matches.